The good oil is check and top it up

My first real job was working Saturday mornings for Big Bruno at the Caltex service station in Campbelltown, on the western outskirts of Sydney. Each week my shift began with cleaning the toilets, always a good way to ensure you don't get too uppity.

But the reason I am reminded of those early days plying the pumps is the flood of recent emails from people who have oil trouble. Holden V6s apparently lose their lubricant on a regular basis, and a couple of Volkswagen owners report cars that have emptied their sumps.

That's nasty stuff on both fronts, and we're trying to track back to the source of the Commodore complaints, but it gets me thinking. How can anyone let their oil drop to a critical level? Or rely entirely on a bright red warning light that only fires when the engine is heading to Defcon 4?

It's because no-one does even the most basic mechanical checks these days. The vast majority of new-car owners believe a 15,000-kilometre service interval means they don't have to do anything between trips to the dealership. Fettling is all about mechanics and the workshop, not them and their local petrol station.

Yet every year I read Goodyear safety statistics that say more than 70 per cent of the country's tyres are dangerously under-inflated, with more and more people also reporting their oily horror stories to Carsguide. Back in the day, a trip to the bowsers meant a trip to the service station.

My job each Saturday was to clean the windscreens, check the radiators and windscreen-washer levels, dip the oil, pump the tyres and fill the tanks. There is no-one to do that at a 21st century Caltex, where price is far more important than service or a smile, so the jobs don't get done. And that's how oil - or no oil - becomes a problem. I'm not defending engines that need investigation, but everyone has some duty of care when it comes to their car.

It's not hard to find the dipstick - these days most have a bright yellow handle - and pumping air into the tyres is easy. A drink of water for the washers means it's far easier to sweep bugs away instead of smearing them across the screen. We're only talking about five minutes, every couple of fills. It's not hard. I know, because I did it for years, and I still do it today.

It can actually be a bit of fun, poking around to discover what's happening under the bonnet and how to ensure a car runs as well as it can. If you're reading this and wondering what the fuss is about, remember that even a low-maintenance modern car is still a complicated beast.

We're well past the days when the safety net for every trip included a fan belt, spare fuses, a litre of Castrol's finest and some water, but no car can run forever without a bit of help. Remember the old line about “an apple a day”? Well, in the case of your car, it could be as simple as "a dip and a squirt" to keep the mechanic at bay.

This reporter is on Twitter: @paulwardgover